Just Friends
by CoolnRainy
Summary: A little one-shot conversation between Rory and Marty after the whole Lucy thing at the restaurant.


**AN: **Hey, guys. I'm a big fan of Marty, and personally would've picked him over Logan myself. But don't get me wrong, I'm happy with Rory and Logan as a couple, they seem happy. This whole season 7 storyline with Marty upset me a little, because I feel as though the poor chap should be allowed to be happy. I liked that he had Lucy, and I really hoped that he and Rory could have rekindled a friendship of sorts. So I wrote this sort of fulfilment of that, because I felt that there was no proper closure for the two of them. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Not my characters. Not my show.

Rory turned and walked away from the firmly closed door, unable to stop her face from crumpling, and a few tears from leaking out. She wiped them away quickly, not wanting to attract strange glances, but for the moment she couldn't stop them. She ducked into a bathroom, shut herself in a cubicle and sniffled miserably on the toilet seat for a while.

How had she managed to screw up so badly? She felt like an idiot. Friends didn't come around easily for her. And especially now, with Logan gone so much, she had suddenly realized how much of herself she had invested in him. Not that she minded. She loved him with all her heart. But she had forfeited friendships and other relationships in her life as he had taken on the role of her constant companion, and when he'd left, he'd left her alone.

She even realized that she and Lane hadn't been so close lately, what with Lane dealing with her pregnancy, husband and mother. And Paris was also absorbed in her plans, and with Doyle, and Rory realized that she had barely maintained that friendship. She hadn't spoken to Paris in months other than on the paper before moving back in with her. And Paris was always busy in her own world anyway.

Finding Lucy and Olivia had been a godsend. Their timing had been perfect, and she had had no trouble inviting them into her life. They were fun, cheerful and they seemed to like her. It was easy with them, something she found to be a very rare occurrence. The three of them had gotten so close over the past few months, and now she had messed that up. She felt horrible.

For a while, she nurtured some new anger at Logan for his ridiculous behavior, which helped the tears to stop. She unlocked the cubicle, cleaned herself up a bit, and then left the bathroom. She ranted angrily at an imaginary Logan in her head as she walked through the cold courtyard, and then replayed the evening in her head, partially so that she could notice any other rude behavior on his part to add fuel to her almost satisfying imaginary speech to him, and also to try and figure out what had triggered his outburst.

She slowly realized that he had manufactured the moment from the point where Marty had made that trust fund remark. Logan had been putting Marty down, and invalidating his feelings toward Rory all evening by joking about crushes and such. She thought irritably that by the time he had called Marty "m'boy", he was asking for trouble, and thoroughly deserved Marty's resentful remark. But when Marty had said it, Logan had obviously taken great offence. She could see now that his asking how Lucy and Marty had met was just a way to lead on the question about how he and Rory had met.

This new realization opened up a fresh wave of fury. It was the difference between premeditated murder and self-defense as far as she was concerned, and she refreshed her imaginary Logan rant to include those accusations. She knew, of course, that at the core, the whole thing was her and Marty's fault, but Logan's way of "being honest" as he called it had been the way to ruin everything as completely as possible.

He had publicly humiliated Lucy, Marty and herself, he had ensured that Lucy would be caught off guard, that Rory and Marty would be unprepared and that all situations would blow up. Now Lucy wasn't talking to her, Olivia wasn't talking to her, and Marty …

She sighed. Everything for Marty would be ruined again if Lucy couldn't forgive him. Despite the fact that it was his stupid actions that had put her in this position, and despite his cold behavior to her at the beginning, Rory couldn't quite hold it against him. She knew him. He was a good guy, who was shy and socially awkward. She herself had turned him down, and apparently hurt him a lot. She had assumed that when she never heard from him again after that night he had confessed his feelings for her.

She supposed he had been afraid that Lucy would pick up on any residual feelings he had, and would have ended things. She sighed again, and sat on a bench. She didn't feel like going home. Of course, this was a completely counterproductive way of dealing with things, and it had, predictably, backfired tremendously. Still. He was Marty. And he was in love with Lucy.

She didn't doubt that for a moment. Nothing but love could prompt such a ridiculous fear with an equally ridiculous solution. She certainly could understand how feelings from the past could wash over one again. Hell, she knew better than most people, remembering her last relationship with Dean. Marty's feelings for her had been deep, and bound to catch him off guard again every now and then. But he was in love with Lucy, and clearly insecure enough that he didn't think she would stay with him if he made the smallest mistake.

"So instead you made an enormous mistake," she thought to herself.

And she had so been enjoying renewing her friendship with him. After Lucy's party, there had been some awkwardness, but she still saw bits of her Marty when they chatted, or were left alone for a few moments. She had missed him. He was a good friend, great company and one of the few people she had felt a connection with at Yale. She felt terrible and embarrassed by what her boyfriend had just done to him.

His panicked expression, and desperate cries of "Lucy!" as he had bolted after her were sickening as they played over and over in her memory. What also haunted her was that look of utter horror and disbelief he had given her and Logan right before running out. Again she felt ashamed and terribly guilty. And before she knew it, she was heading back to Branford.

She neither knew nor cared if going to see him was wise or not. She just knew she had to apologise. He had to know how terrible she felt, and that she hadn't meant for that to happen. She headed over to the room she remembered from popping by there with Lucy and Olivia a few weeks back, and firmly knocked on the door. She waited, and knocked again.

Thinking he might be ignoring visitors, she called through the door, "Marty, it's Rory, please open up."

She knocked again, and waited. Just as she decided he wasn't in after all, she heard the sound of the door being unlocked. When it slowly opened, she saw that Marty's eyes were a bit red, and felt her heart sink even lower.

"Hey," he said flatly.

"Hey," she replied softly. There was a pause, and then she burst out, "Marty, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I told Logan not to say anything, but I – I don't know why he did. He was real jerk tonight, Marty, I am so, so sorry!"

He gave a small, sad smile, and said, "I know. It's not your fault, it's mine. You have nothing to apologise for."

"Oh, Marty," she said sadly. "I have to apologise. My boyfriend completely messed up your life-" She stopped, not wanting to make it worse for him. "I'm sorry," she amended again.

Marty sighed, and shrugged, and gazed at his shoes. "I was stupid, I did this. Logan _was_ a jerk, but it's my fault in the end."

"Mine, too," said Rory quietly. "I shouldn't have let this happen."

Again, Marty merely shrugged, and said nothing.

There was another pause.

"Wanna go and get some coffee?" she offered.

He looked up at her, and mumbled, "Not really. But thanks."

There was a pause, and then she found herself saying, "Please? I'd really like to talk some more."

So Marty gave yet another shrug, said, "Okay," and stepped out of his room. They left Branford and wondered over to a still open coffee cart. They both ended up ordering hot chocolate instead, in need of the comfort only chocolate could bring, and wondered off to a bench.

For a few minutes they merely sat in silence, sipping their drinks. Then Marty said quietly, "I am over you, you know."

Rory looked over at him, and saw him staring at the ground.

"I know, Marty," she said. "I understand. I promise."

"I don't know why I did it," he said desperately. "I mean, I was afraid, but I'm not sure why."

"You were just afraid your feelings would come back, I guess," said Rory. "Or maybe you just didn't want Lucy to find out that I … you know … turned you down." She looked sheepishly away from him.

But he nodded, and said, "Yeah, that's probably a part of it. Pride, and all that crap."

There was another long silence. Rory wanted to ask him what had happened after he and Lucy had run out, but she felt as though that was too probing. But then Marty spoke to her, and asked, "Have you spoken to her?"

Rory looked up at him, and realized that he wanted to find out how Lucy was. That wasn't a good sign.

She shook her head, and mumbled, "She won't speak to me."

Marty let out a breath, and said painfully, "Sorry."

She shook her head. "It's my own fault she won't talk to me. It's your fault she won't talk to you. It's my boyfriend's fault that this happened in the worst possible way." She looked at him, and continued, "I was going to talk to you about this. I was going to tell you that we had to tell her, and that we should as soon as possible …"

Marty sighed. "Yeah," he mumbled.

She frowned at him, and asked, "Would you have agreed?"

"I don't know. Yeah, probably." He paused and thought about it "But I'd probably have chickened out again."

"Well, I would've told her," said Rory, almost apologetically. "But I'd have tried to get you to be there with me, because I think that it would've helped for you to tell her."

"Well, we'll never know now."

"Yeah."

They sipped gloomily together.

"I've liked having you as a friend again," she told him. "I know people always act like that's a downgrade, but it isn't, Marty. I loved having you as a friend. You were so important to me. And it's been nice having you around again."

He smiled at her. "Yeah, I get that. For me, too."

"But I never heard from you again," she said quietly, betraying some of the hurt she had felt.

He looked down, and said steadily, "I know. I'm sorry about that. I just couldn't face it. Face you. Face the humiliation and rejection. Rory, I'd have been awful company after that because of how awful I felt. Hell, I'm still screwing up your life. But anyway, I am sorry."

She smiled at him, and said gently, "That's okay, Marty."

He looked at her, and added, "I wish I had done things differently. I mean, all chance of a rekindled friendship is over now."

Rory looked a bit surprised. "It is?" she asked.

Marty looked at her sadly. "Well, unless Lucy forgives me. But even then, I'll just be the boyfriend of your friend. You and me … we can never be friends the way we were. You belong to Lucy now, and anyway, a proper friendship would be impossible considering my and Logan's obvious clashing. I'll always hate him, and he'll always disregard me."

Rory felt saddened as well, because he was right, really. They had been close before. Very close. But they had developed new relationships and alliances, and, as Marty pointed out, belonged to different people now.

"If I hadn't pretended not to know you …" Marty continued with deep regret in his voice, "maybe we could've … but it's too late now. Besides, Lucy will never forgive me."

"Sure she will!" exclaimed Rory at once. Then she immediately wished she hadn't. Truthfully she had no idea. Her outburst was more indicative of what she wanted.

But Marty shook his head.

"I screwed it all up. She won't forgive me. No way. And I deserve it."

Rory stared at him with sadness. She just wanted him to be happy, she really did.

"We both really screwed up," she said gloomily. "God, I'm pissed off with Logan, though!"

Marty laughed, and said, "Oh, you have no idea!"

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. "I'm glad you're happy with him," he said sincerely. "It makes it better that you picked him, because it's real. At the time, I thought you couldn't want some playboy like that, and that he'd just hurt you. But he didn't. He has good taste, I'll give the bastard that."

Rory smiled appreciatively. The insult to Logan was overlooked, because today it was entirely appropriate.

"Look, it's been a nice chat," Marty said after a long pause. "But I have to go – I've got an early shift tomorrow."

"Oh, okay …" said Rory, slightly disappointed.

"But I'm glad we talked, and that everything's sort of okay with us now."

"Me too," she said.

He smiled, and nodded, and stood up to go.

"Hey," said Rory quickly, "If I _did_ want to chat again, could I call you?"

He hesitated, and she said earnestly, "Maybe we can never be friends the way we were, but maybe we can establish a new sort of friendship?"

And he smiled happily, and said, "That might be nice. See ya, Rory."

"See ya, Marty."

And he walked away, and Rory felt a bittersweet feeling at such an awful circumstance bringing them a bit closer again after all this time. She had missed her friend. And she promised herself to never again underestimate the importance of the role of a friend.

Because friends aren't, and never should be referred to as "just friends". Friends are friends with a capital F.


End file.
